Food trucks gather for Modesto event

For many years, food trucks have catered at events such as fairs and music festivals; now they are becoming the event.

San Francisco-based company Off the Grid started in 2010 with the “simple idea of grouping street food vendors together” and now has more than 50 weekly food truck events throughout the Bay Area.

The next year, a startup called SactoMoFo held its first food truck event in Sacramento with more than 10,000 in attendance. The company has since expanded into San Joaquin County.

Two local business owners, Lynaya Post of The Post Restaurant and Hank Olson, owner of the food truck Food Fix, are hoping the idea will gain traction here in Stanislaus County. They held their second food truck event Saturday at The Post.

Six food trucks from Modesto, Stockton and Sacramento gathered in the parking lot of The Post, tucked away in a country setting on Stoddard Avenue north of Kiernan Avenue. It is among 14 buildings on a large property owned by the Post family that decades ago was a Shell Oil agriculture research lab.

One of the businesses that leases space on the property is a culinary school at which Olson used to teach, including during the first year he was starting his food truck business.

“I just thought this was a cool location because most of those events, they don’t have a bar, and my food goes good with beer,” he said.

He and Post hope the event will eventually become a monthly occurrence.

Christine Louie, owner of Mamas and the Tapas, said, “We are not in competition with each other; we help each other.”

Many food trucks have their own followings, so by teaming they share their customer base and the customers get to try new food.

Attendees who didn’t want to stand to order could go inside The Post Restaurant for a nice sit-down meal.

While The Post has been open for five years – it was previously operated as The Palms – Post said many people don’t know about it because of its remote location.

The food truck event was a way to get exposure for the restaurant, a winery that leases one of the spaces on the property and, of course, all of the food trucks.

This story was originally published August 13, 2016 at 6:38 PM with the headline "Food trucks gather for Modesto event."